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Sunday, June 10, 2012

Welcome to the Friday Farm Fix, a new series on Farmgirl Fare where I share a random sampling of what's been happening around the farm during the past week (usually on Fridays). Just joining us? You'll find all the Friday Farm Fix posts here.

On guard in the front field

For the first time since last September, the entire flock (except for the two rams) is together again. Half of the sheep had already been grazing out in the front field, which is our main pasture, for the past couple of weeks, and a few days ago the moms and our seven remaining lambs joined them.

How do we know it's time to stop creep feeding the lambs? When they're too fat to squeeze into (or out of!) the creep feeder. Of course they don't agree with that reasoning. Nevertheless, the twice a day treats (with hay in between) are over. It's time to graze.

The plan is for the flock to live out in the front field for the next several months, protected by Daisy and Marta and free to eat during the night when it's cooler. Hopefully there will be enough grass out there for them (and the donkeys in Donkeyland) to feed them through the fall. The heat and drought aren't giving in.

I don't remember the fields ever looking this bad, although Joe says they have. In many places you can see more dusty bare ground than grass, and what little green there is just keeps getting browner.

All we can do is pray for rain.

20 more farm photos below. . .

This is the front field now; you can see it this time three years ago here and here.

Hi Kaela,Welcome to the farm! Daisy is a Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog. You can see more of her here. Her partner Marta (aka Marta Beast) is a tri-mix of three LGD breeds: Great Pyrenees, Komondor, and Anatolian Shepherd.

So hope you get Rain, know how important it is to the farm, think we have taken it all here on LI,NY, it's like Florida weather here this spring, sun then rain on and off for days and very humid,though my plants and Water bill love it, just wondering what the summer will be like ...

Consider rain prayed for..done! Does it make your days a bit easier to have all the sheep together? I hope so. Susan, does that shot show your garlic harvested already? I am growing for the first time this year in hardneck country and just harvested scapes last week. Pesto, yum! If you have harvested, would you please share how you time your harvest? As always, I really appreciate your input. Thanks!

Hi Cary,Your prayers worked - we did get a little rain on Monday. Keep praying! :)

As for my hardneck garlic, yes, I harvested it all on June 6th - three weeks earlier than last year. When to harvest garlic depends on where you're located; for me it's when about 1/3 of the leaves turn yellow/brown, but in some places you wait until the entire plant turns brown.

I was kind of disappointed with my garlic harvest this year, especially since I planted nice big cloves from last year and the plants were so big and promising a few months ago. Our spring weather has been really strange, though, and as you know we hardly had any rain.

I did spend a lot of time watering the rest of the garden, but I'm so used to not having to water the garlic because it gets enough rainfall that it probably suffered. During the last month of growth you want to stop watering so the papery outer layers protecting the cloves will stay intact.

Thanks so much! I do read and enjoy Margaret Roach and her garlic primers too, but especially appreciate your help. (Oh, and your mystery white birds are definitely some kind of egret. Picture of them in flight is classic. Very neat that you get to see the Great Blue Herons; aren't they amazing?) Have a terrific week!

Meh....Friday, Sunday, it's all the same when you work seven days a week, right? And I actually kinda like the fact that it shows up Sunday evenings more often than not........... :) I've been thinking the weather here isn't so bad in St. Louis but then I've got a hose. The difference between the front field now and three years ago is really obvious when you look at both photos. I'll be praying for rain in your neck of the woods right along with you. :)

Oh I feel for you guys. We had so many years of heartbreaking drought and that fear at the start of each season of what was to come is indelibly planted in my mind. Here's hoping things take a turn for the better for you. And tail end of the week can be whenever you want it to be!

January 2013 update: I know word verification is a big pain, but it's the only way I can stop the ridiculous number of anonymous spam comments I get every day. I don't want to require commenters to be registered Blogger or Open ID users because I know many of you aren't. Thanks so much for your understanding!

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